[2] Two categories were added soon after – essay, in 1941, and short story, in 1954 – and four other more recently, in 2013 – children's and young adult literature, referential (memoirs, chronicles, diaries, letters, biographies, and also compilations and anthologies),[3] journalistic research and editing.

In 2014 it was decided to start awarding children's and young adult literature separately, making it a total of ten categories.

The works published in first edition the year prior to the contest may be submitted (in dramaturgy, the works released the year before the contest may also be submitted); in each genre, a jury selects three finalists from which it subsequently chooses the winner.

[3] This award has undergone some interruptions during its history – It was not granted during the first three years of the dictatorship, and restored in 1976 under the administration of Mayor Patricio Mekis [es].

[4] In 1985, Mayor Carlos Bombal revoked the jury's decision to award Jaime Miranda's Regreso sin causa[5] and ordered the suspension of the contest,[6] being finally restored in 1988 by Mayor Máximo Honorato [es].